Mains water supplies need to be monitored for the well-being of the populous and to assist in the maintenance and upkeep of those supplies. Monitoring of such supplies up to now has been carried out by local inspection. A human operative will visit a mains hydrant, gaining access thereto by a culvert or the like, collect a sample of mains water from the hydrant branch and move on, returning periodically.
This has several disadvantages. It is intensive in terms of skilled manpower requirements and only tests water in the hydrant branch. Further, for many forms of monitoring water needs to removed from the location for testing as a result of which its properties may change.
It is an aim of preferred embodiments of the present invention to obviate or overcome a disadvantage of the prior art, whether such disadvantage or prior art is referred to herein or otherwise.